they're even claiming tehir .7z format is even better than .rar, plus they support .rar, .zip, .tar, etc., etc.

does anybody know of any better free software archiver for PC? what are the advantages to winzip, winrar, et al?

DoIFeelLucky

2005-07-05, 06:34 PM

I switched to 7-zip last year, uninstalled WinRAR, and never had to look back. It's free and it supports pretty much every format. I recommend it pretty highly.

AAR.oner

2005-07-05, 06:43 PM

me too..7zip is really all ya need...

for other good recommendations re: zip programs [as well as any other freeware] check this site...IMO, this is the spot for finding freeware
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

Cowboy Bob

2005-07-05, 06:44 PM

I still find .tar.gz (Tarred and GZipped) to be the best universal format.

If you look at Sourceforge or similar places the files are always smaller than standard Zip - not as small as 7-Zip though. It's also guaranteed to work on just about every machine known to man without extra software (OK, on Billyware you need to use a 3rd party program - but that's par for the course).

In most cases yes. Depends on if the contents are already compressed (such as an archive of MP3s), but you knew that already.

Bob

Ted

2005-07-06, 06:46 AM

what are the advantages to winzip, winrar, et al?The differ formats have algorithms that are better suited for different types of data. I wish I could remember more details. I've seen data files packed into .mp3 format because it can compress even more than zip, rar, or any of the others. You can't listen to it, of course. UHA is another very good compression algorithm.

Here are a couple comparison's:

http://www.geocities.com/eri32/binaries22.html

http://www.cmetge.dixinet.com/compression.asp

wharfrat73

2005-07-06, 07:42 AM

I do like the recovery feature of Winrar. It doesn't look like 7-Zip has that... yet.